From Body Tracking Interaction in Floor Projection Displays to Elderly Cardiorespiratory Training Through Exergaming

The opportunity to develop new natural user interfaces has come forward due to the recent development of inexpensive full body tracking sensors, which has made this technology accessible to millions of users. In this paper, we present a comparative study between two natural user interfaces, and a cardiorespiratory training exergame developed based on the study results. The focus was on studying interfaces that could easily be used by an elderly population for interaction with floor projection displays. One interface uses both feet position to control a cursor and feet distance to trigger activation. In the alternative interface, the cursor is controlled by forearm ray casting into the projection floor and interaction is activated by hand pose. These modes of interaction were tested with 19 elderly participants in a point-and-click and a drag-and-drop task using a between-subjects experimental design. The usability, perceived workload and performance indicators were measured for each interface. Results show a clear preference towards the feet-controlled interface and a marginally better performance for this method. The results from the study served as a guide to the design of a cardiorespiratory fitness exergame for the elderly. The game “Grape Stomping” uses ground projection and mapping to display real-size winery elements. These virtual elements are used to simulate, in a playful way, the process of grape maceration through repeated stomping. 

Reference:

Gonçalves, A. R., Nobrega, F., Cameirão, M. S., Muñoz, J., Gouveia, E. R., & Bermúdez i Badia, S. (2019). From Body Tracking Interaction in Floor Projection Displays to Elderly Cardiorespiratory Training Through Exergaming. In Physiological Computing Systems. Springer Nature.